Roch Theriault ~ Murderous Quebec Cult

Quebec cult leader’s chilling

story told in new TV movie

Savage Messiah

Toronto — Canada came close to having its very own Jonestown or Manson family murders, says a Quebec woman who managed to flee the grasp of 1980s cult leader Roch Theriault after he cut off her right arm with a chainsaw.

“Definitely!” says Gabrielle Lavallee, 52, who wears a hook where her right arm used to be. “It had already started. One of my colleagues, Nicole, she died after surgery that he had done. When he played doctor, he was Frankenstein. And then it was my turn.”

The story of Theriault and Lavallee, one of his eight commune “wives,” is told in Savage Messiah, a new TV movie airing Sunday night on the premium channels The Movie Network and Movie Central.

Savage Messiah recounts the well-publicized case of Theriault, the charismatic Quebecer who established a commune near Burnt River, Ont., 15 years ago, where he ruled over his concubines, 26 children and other followers.

His religious cult became increasingly bizarre and cruel, however, and soon social workers and police were investigating reports of abuse of the women and children and eventually the death of an infant and one of his wives, who had been partially disembowelled with a kitchen knife.

Theriault, who wanted to be called Moses, was brilliant at manipulating both the legal system and vulnerable individuals, but he also had a maniacal streak that triggered brutal punishment and even torture.

“It’s a miracle that I survived such barbaric aggression,” says Lavallee.

“That night, July 26, 1989, he hacked off my right arm, not only my hand, he took off part of my right arm.”

Montreal producer Bernard Zukerman (Million Dollar Babies, The Sleep Room) says he usually makes network TV films but this story had to air on pay TV, although it’s scheduled to be shown on Showcase at a later date.

“The restrictions of being able to do it for them (conventional TV) would have watered it down so much it would have lost much of the impact necessary for the story.”

Although filmed in English with mostly French-Canadian actors (Luc Picard, a major star in Quebec, plays Theriault), Zukerman says the production garnered intense media coverage in the French press during shooting. And the book on which it was based has sold 200,000 copies.

As a result, they decided to have the actors dub their own voices back into French and released Savage Messiah theatrically across Quebec.

It did huge box office, netting more than $1 million on 66 screens in three weeks, beating out all the Hollywood blockbusters to be the highest-grossing film in the province.

“It really showed me the great divide,” says Zukerman. “Like how different Quebec is than English Canada.

“They embrace their stories, they embrace their stars. It was an incredible lesson for me.”

Like so many Canadian productions, Savage Messiah required international financing partners, in this case U.K. and German.

For his heroine, the pit bull of a social worker who pursued the Theriault case, Zukerman employed British actress Polly Walker.

Although she does a fine job, she no doubt will aggravate the confusion of viewers who already have to distinguish among Polly Shannon (Trudeau), Molly Parker (Rare Birds) and Molly Shannon (Saturday Night Live).

For her part, Lavallee has dealt with her trauma by writing a book - she’s hoping it will get an English translation and printing - and by spending the last nine years touring schools in Quebec, lecturing kids on the dangers of cults that prey on the weak and vulnerable.

“The first step that I took was to use writing, to apply myself to de-programming. Because we were brainwashed. And during the catharsis I was able to recreate the personality that I had before I endorsed his ideology.”

Although Theriault -now in New Brunswick’s Dorchester Penitentiary - has been eligible for parole since 1999, he is reported planning to apply for the first time this summer. Conjugal visits with three of his remaining wives have allowed him to father still more children.

SYNOPSIS:This is a powerful, psychological movie about a small-town social worker who brings a diabolical cult leader to justice. Roch Thériault presides over a bizarre commune that includes his eight wives and 26 children. The film follows the social worker who visits the commune and, although everything on the surface seems fine, she senses desperation among the wives. Even though her department co-workers are indifferent, she investigates further and discovers a dead child, strange, ritualistic goings-on and shocking mental and physical abuse. With her job and life on the line, she is determined to free the members from Roch's tyranny. But she faces numerous obstacles. The major one is Roch's astonishing ability to manipulate people and the system, including the court appointed investigators.

Cult leader Roch Theriault dead in jail

Infamous cult leader Roch Theriault, serving a life sentence for murdering one of his cult members, was found dead inside his prison cell in New Brunswick, early Saturday, CTV Montreal has confirmed.

Corrections Canada spokesperson étienne Chiasson confirmed to there was evidence Theriault was the victim of an assault. An RCMP murder investigation is now underway at the corrections facility in Dorchester, N.B.

A 59-old old inmate has been arrested for the crime.

Theriault, 63, was sentenced in 1993 to life in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Solange Boislard, a long-time member of the survivalist cult.

Her body was found in 1989 at the cult's camp near Lindsay, Ont., 70 kilometres northeast of Toronto. She had been partially disemboweled with a kitchen knife during a cult ritual.

Before his capture, Theriault proved brilliant at manipulating both the legal system and vulnerable individuals. But he also had a maniacal streak that triggered brutal punishment and even torture.

The charismatic Quebecer established a commune near Burnt River, Ont., in 1987, where he ruled over his concubines, 22 children and other followers.

His religious cult became increasingly bizarre and cruel, and soon social workers and police were investigating reports of abuse of the women and children and eventually the deaths of Boislard and an infant.

Theriault was engaged in physical and sexual abuse of members of the cult, including the amputation of the hand of one woman, Gabrielle Lavallee. Lavallee wrote a book about her experience.

"It's a miracle that I survived such barbaric aggression," Lavallee told The Canadian Press in 2002.

"That night, July 26, 1989, he hacked off my right arm, not only my hand, he took off part of my right arm."

Two of Theriault's children, Roch-Slyvain and Francois, also wrote a book two years ago about their lives growing up with their father.

A French-language film about Theriault and his cult was realeased in 2002.

Slain cult leader was ‘victim of his past’

Thériault often assaulted by other inmates: lawyer

Former cult leader Roch Theriault was found dead in his jail cell in Dorchester, N.B., on Saturday Feb. 27, the victim of what police are calling an assault.

MONTREAL - Roch Thériault, the former doomsday cult leader who was killed in his cell over the weekend, paid dearly and often for his crimes, his lawyer says.

Renée Millette, a Montreal lawyer who represents inmates for procedures like parole hearings, said Thériault was attacked often by other inmates over the last two decades while he served time for amputating the arm of one of his followers and killing another. Millette said the assaults include others at Dorchester Penitentiary, the medium-security institution near Moncton, N.B., where he died Saturday. He had been incarcerated there since 2000.

“He was often a victim of his past. The assaults had nothing to do with how he acted while incarcerated. It was because of his past,” Millette said, adding Thériault had regrets about his time as the spiritual leader of a group he began in Quebec in 1978 and later moved to Burnt River, Ont., where the cult became known as the Ant Hill Kids.

Millette said she was stunned to hear Thériault was likely assaulted in his cell. She said he did not share his cell and that the section of the federal penitentiary was well-monitored.

Correctional staff found the former cult leader inside his cell shortly after 9 a.m. Saturday. According to a release issued by Correctional Service of Canada, Thériault was “unresponsive” and the victim of an apparent assault. Attempts to revive him failed.

Millette said she first met Thériault in 1995 while he was incarcerated in a penitentiary in Portneuf and was experiencing problems there.

“He was no longer a dangerous man. I don’t hesitate in saying that,” Millette said of Thériault, who was turned down for parole in 2002 because the National Parole Board deemed him too high a risk of reoffending. Millette said Thériault walked out on his 2002 hearing before it ended and never sought parole again.

Millette said Thériault’s health problems, in particular diabetes and a bad heart, made him very weak. She said he recently spent two weeks in a hospital to be treated for two severely blocked arteries.

Thériault started a commune in the Gaspé region, near New Carlisle, in 1978 and attracted followers while proclaiming himself a prophet who could predict the end of the world. The cult moved to Ontario in 1984 and settled in Burnt River. It was there that Thériault committed the crimes that resulted in the life sentence he was serving. In 1989, he was sentenced to 12 years for amputating the arm of Gabrielle Lavallée, one of his followers. Lavallée told police Thériault believed he was a doctor whenever he drank. It was while investigating what he did to Lavallée that police discovered Thériault killed 32-year-old Solange Boislard, another woman who lived with him. He was sentenced to life in 1993 after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.

Charges were not laid Monday even though the RCMP arrested and questioned a 59-year-old inmate after Thériault was killed. The inmate's name was not made public.

Killed cult leader's sons speak out

MONTREAL -- Francois Theriault, son of former cult leader, Roch "Moses" Theriault, said he wasn't surprised when he heard his father was found dead in his jail cell earlier this year.

"We knew that it was going to happen one day or another," he said, adding that what did surprise him was that his father hadn't been killed earlier.

François, along with his brother Roch-Sylvain, gave an exclusive interview to QMI Agency Friday night about his father, who led a religious cult in Quebec and Ontario during the 1980s.

Theriault, known as Moses, manipulated and physically abused his followers, including hacking a woman's right arm off. In 1988, he used a knife to disembowel his wife Solange Boilard during a cult ritual.

He was sentenced to life in prison for her murder in 1993.

In late February, Theriault was killed by a fellow inmate at Dorchester Penitentiary in New Brunswick. He was 63.

Roch-Sylvain said that although he understands how people could rejoice at the demise of his father, "I never wanted it to end this way."

Since they were young, Theriault's two sons lived in horror.

It began in 1980, when the young boys joined their father's commune in Quebec.

Almost immediately the boys were subjected to their father's violent, drunken and sexual acts.

"I was so scared of him when I was small," said Francois, "He would say my name and I would tremble like a leaf."

When their father drank, his sons knew he would pay them a "visit."

And they weren't the only ones in the commune Theriault would visit when drunk. François and Roch-Sylvain remember the disembowelling of Solange Boilard.

"He was a shark," said Francois, "he needed to see blood."

In spite of their childhood, the two men took back control of their lives. In 2009, they published a book about their experience. They said that talking publicly about their father frees them from the horrors they lived through.

And although the memories of their violent childhood will never leave them, they claim they won't pass anything on to their children.

"My little girl was looking at me," said Francois, "and I told her that she'll never have to experience anything like that with me."

Prisoner charged in cult leader's death was serving time for two other deaths

MONCTON, N.B. — A 60-year-old man serving time for two deaths in British Columbia — including that of a fellow inmate — has been charged with murder in the slaying of a former cult leader inside a New Brunswick prison.

Matthew MacDonald of Port au Port, N.L., is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Roch "Moses" Theriault.

Investigators say Theriault was found dead near his cell at a penitentiary in Dorchester, N.B., on Feb. 26.

Police say Theriault, 63, was involved in an altercation with another inmate and died from his injuries.

Theriault founded and led a notorious sect in the 1980s. It was first established in two Quebec towns, Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce and Saint-Jogues, then finally in Burnt River, Ont.

Theriault, who wanted to be called Moses, was sentenced to life in prison in 1993 for the gruesome murder of his wife Solange Boilard, whom he disembowelled with a kitchen knife as part of a cult ritual.

Theriault was engaged in physical and sexual abuse of members of the cult, including the amputation of the hand of one woman, Gabrielle Lavallee. Lavallee wrote a book about her experience.

The cult leader had 22 children with women he held under his sway.

The Correctional Service of Canada confirmed Friday that MacDonald was serving a life sentence at the Dorchester penitentiary for the second-degree murder of a taxi driver in Prince George, B.C, in 1985. He was also serving time for manslaughter involving another inmate at the William Head Institution years later.

The Dorchester penitentiary is a medium-security facility southeast of Moncton that houses more than 400 inmates.

MacDonald is scheduled to return to Moncton provincial court on May 13 to enter a plea.

Revealed: Murder of Canadian cult leader who performed ritual killings and beat children to death

November 14, 2011

The Canadian Mounties have refused to tell the public how notorious cult leader Roch Theriault was killed in a New Brunswick prison. So I figured I should. After all, Theriault, the self-styled prophet who called himself Moses, has terrorized too many women to count. It is easier to count his children, all 26 of them. He fathered four of his kids during overnight prison visits from female groupies. This is a guy who disemboweled a woman in a ritual killing with a kitchen knife. They buried her in a secret grave not far from his cult(s) Quebec compound. A guy who extracted teeth from another woman with pliers and without pain killers.

He used a meat cleaver on the same woman to amputate her arm. Again, he used no anaesthetic. A guy who used scissors to cut off a lump off a boy(s) penis only for the boy to bleed to death. And they burned the boy (s) body. This makes a Law & Order episode look weak and it should. I have had supper with an actor who played a killer on that show and he comes nowhere near as evil as this man. I no longer have any TV channels. This is the same guy who was arrested for beating a two-year-old boy to death for crying. If you don(t) know who I am talking about, then keep reading. I only say that because this creep is from the worst crowd. And in this dawn of celebrity news, sometimes our own ugly history goes unreported or not reported enough.

So yeah, this is the guy whose prison killing the Mounties have politely declined to give a single detail about.

Thankfully, I had direct access to Dorchester Penitenitary(s) internal files on this case. I have been inside Dorchester a few times to visit some convicts and once delivered Kentucky Fried Chicken there for Thanksgiving. You should have seen their faces. You don(t) get to order what you want in prison unless your name is Paul Bernardo. He, as you may or may not know, actually gets to order his food and whatever movie he wants to rent for his weekend trailer visits. And that means some guard low on the pole has to go pick up the food order for a schoolgirl killer.

But back to Dorchester, and Canada(s) most notorious cult leader. Someone you probably don(t) remember reading about. Dorchester is an old prison and it rises up like an old Victorian workhouse.

Inside, prison officials have done their best to paint the wall with mood-friendly colours with the hopes it will keep all calm.

Nothing like putting a fresh coat of paint over an old problem.

Take last February for example. That(s) when someone finally killed Roch Theriault, 63. According to prison guards who were on duty, Theriault, was last seen alive at 8:15 a.m. And not long after, at 9:10 a.m., he was slashed in the throat with a homemade knife, or what prisoners call a shank.

The guards reported that 60-year-old Matthew MacDonald, from Newfoundland, used a shank to slash Roch Theriaults throat. It should be noted that MacDonald hasn(t) been convicted in this case. He hasn(t) had a preliminary inquiry before a judge to see if there(s) enough evidence to warrant an actual trial.

But God love Newfoundlanders. I lived in St. John(s), Pouch Cove and Springdale. One of the best times I have ever had. Good people. I haven(t) yet met MacDonald so I don(t) know him enough to get inside his head. I like studying the minds of killers. It(s) better than TV and I find they don(t) lie like petty criminals. Again, I don(t) know him.

But I do know this. The guards reported that this was not a case of some loser convict running away from a murder scene, or worse, lying about it.

This guy, according to guards at the prison, slashes the twisted cult leader(s) throat and doesn(t) run. Instead, the guards report that that MacDonald, allegedly with bloody knife in hand, walks up to a guard minutes later, and throws it down on a table and says the guy in the cell might need some assistance. I would have rathered he used a real word like help, and maybe he did. Maybe the word assistance is clinical guard talk. I(d) go with the word help over assistance any day of the week.

So today, MacDonald is facing murder in the first degree. That(s) a bad charge and we(ll) see what happens when he starts winding through the criminal justice system.

Some lifers in prison look forward to court appearances because they are usually fed fast-food, something they can(t) get in prison. On the surface, it sounds cold. But when you(re) in prison without a cheeseburger for 10 years, maybe it makes a little sense. I like cheeseburgers and a certain inmate has been calling me collect for the last three weeks complaining that he can(t) get one in jail. But he gets one when the guards bring him to court. Even then he complains because the McDonalds cheeseburger does not come with a drink. Just fries. And they don(t) give him ketchup. It(s) a first-world problem but it is just a fact that you don(t) hear about in newspaper stories. I always try to include food in my stories. Sometimes it works.

Oh, if you(re) from Toronto, Roch Theriault was the violent cult leader at a camp north of Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s. He was the loser leader of what he called Ant Hill Kids. He tortured some of his followers to death.

Theriault called his cult Ant Hill Kids for his flock(s) work ethic. Sadly, he fathered 26 children. I hope none of his children know their father(s) identity. And if they do, they should know their biological (father) was from the worst crowd.

And he got things way wrong. He is the same cult leader who wrongly declared that the world would end in 1979.

Somewhere, some terrorized victim of this cult leader is thinking that something finally went right when someone came to him with a shank in his hand and murder on his mind.

Cult leader Roch Thériault, shown in a 1981 photo, was serving a life sentence at Dorchester Penitentiary in New Brunswick. ((Canadian Press))

A 60-year-old man has been sentenced to life in prison for slaying a notorious cult leader at Dorchester Penitentiary in New Brunswick last February.

Matthew Gerrard MacDonald, of Port au Port, N.L., was scheduled to have a jury trial date set Monday in Moncton Court of Queen’s Bench on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of his fellow inmate Roch Thériault.

But MacDonald re-elected to be tried by judge alone and pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree murder, said Crown prosecutor Anthony Allman told CBC News.

The Quebec-born Thériault, 63, was found dead near his cell at the Dorchester institution on Feb. 26, 2011. At the time, police reported that he had been involved in an altercation with another inmate and died as a result of his injuries.

MacDonald was seen on a video from the institution going into Thériault’s cell, said Allman.

"He then is seen emerging and pulling a shank from Mr. Thériault’s neck," Allman told CBC News. "And then he goes to the guards and says in rather cruder words than these that he just killed Mr. Thériault."

Second-degree murder means MacDonald intended to kill Thériault, but that it wasn't premeditated.

MacDonald "had expressed some animosity towards Mr. Thériault" and his prior convictions for killing a woman and maiming another.

"He said some things about Mr. Thériault’s prior record for convictions which involved girls and women."

Thériault led a cult from 1977 to 1989, first in Ste-Marie de Beauce, Quebec, then in Gaspé, and then Burnt River, Ontario, where he lived with eight women, his 26 children and several followers.

He killed his wife, cult member Solange Boislard, by disembowelling her, and chopped off the right arm of another commune wife, Gabrielle Lavallee, with a chainsaw.

In 1993, Thériault was sentenced to life in prison at Dorchester, a medium-security facility southeast of Moncton that houses about 400 inmates.

Since MacDonald is already serving a life sentence for a previous murder, the Crown didn't have to make any submissions for the sentencing.

"All murders you get life imprisonment; the issue is parole," said Allman.

"If it's a second-degree murder, it's normally 10 years or whatever the court orders. But where it's a second-degree murder by a person who already has a murder on his record, then the automatic sentence is life without parole for 25 years," he said.